Solutions Journalism - Humane Technology

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Journalists are being trained to measure success on the number of stories we publish per day. The resource crunch that opened journalism up to this new idea is also the thing that's standing in the way of more people practising it. We're acknowledging a new reality of finite attention, both the finite attention that a journalist has to gather information and the finite attentionthat a reader has to receive information. And i think technology all too often falls in the trap of just bombarding people in infor ation. It's hard to stop doing something else so you can have time and resources to do great solutions journalism.

What is the goal of our digital information environment? Is it simply to inform us, or also to empower us to act?

The Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) understands that simply reporting on social problems rarely leads to change. What they’ve discovered is that rigorously reporting on responses to social problems is more likely to give activists and concerned citizens the hope and information they need to take effective action. For this reason, SJN trains journalists to report on “solutions angles.” More broadly, the organization seeks to rebalance the news, so that people are exposed to stories that help them understand the challenges we face as well as potential ways to respond.

In this episode, Tina Rosenberg, co-founder of SJN, and Hélène Biandudi Hofer, former manager of SJN’s Complicating the Narratives initiative, walk us through the origin of solutions journalism, how to practice it, and what impact it has had. Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin reflect on how humane technology, much like solutions journalism, should also be designed to create an empowering relationship with reality — enabling us to shift from learned helplessness to what we might call learned hopefulness.